Terrorizing The Citizenry

by Dick Mac

After 9/11, the security industry was subsidized to levels only the military-industrial complex had ever dreamed.

We were told we would be made safe. The bad guys would never hurt us like that again.

What we were not told is that we would day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, year-by-year, watch our personal freedoms erode to such a degree that the free world would become more like a police state than George Orwell imagined (or imagined perfectly, perhaps).

It all started sort of comically one day in 2002 when an elderly woman was forced to surrender her knitting needles to "the authorities" before boarding an airplane. We all laughed, because it was so absurd. Granny made it to her destination without her knitting, and we moved on with our lives.

And things got worse.

Our giggles have turned slowly to outrage.

On the one hand we say: "What do you expect? The people controlling our airport security only have those jobs because McDonald's wasn't hiring. They are just a bunch of idiots."

On the other hand we say: "This will keep us safe. A little inconvenience at the gate will make me safer in the air."

We have the group that says: "This is a complete and total violation of our right to privacy and unreasonable search."

We have another group that says: "I've got nothing to hide, so let them search me." (Note: this group is generally made-up of middle-class white men who are never stopped and searched for any reason.)

It's a debate we have among ourselves while the security companies change our rights quietly, hoping we pay no attention.

Congress is no help to the citizenry. This group of 630-something millionaires pretending to represent the common man see this situation as an opportunity to profiteer, not protect us. They pass laws that restrict freedom and provide funds to security companies to militarize our police force and restrict our freedom.

This problem is not unique to the United States, but is happening throughout the free world, with our closest allies.

And we sit by and we watch as seemingly isolated events happen like this: a dad is harassed for photographing his daughter eating an ice cream cone in a shopping mall because it violates the Terrorism Act. A woman is stopped and refused boarding a flight because of her cupcake because it violated anti-terrorism regulations. A family is arrested and their child removed from their custody at a supermarket over an accidental dispute over s three dollar sandwich. The list goes on.

And the middle class, the now voiceless, silent, frightened middle class silently acquiesces.

One only need look at the government's handling of the Occupy movement: the beatings and assaults on people of all ages by battle-armored urban police forces. I have few pundits question why our police use military-grade equipment on children and elderly people protesting government policy.

Are you really safer from the threat of terrorism?

Can we even discern between enemy combatants and our own police forces?

Will the middle class ever enjoy the freedoms of movement, assembly, and speech that we used to take for granted?

Just because Khloe Kardashian's genetic lineage is today's big news, does that mean we should sit by and watch our government being turned over to military and security contractors?

Please read the following stories for a little entertainment. Pretend the Kardashians are the subjects:

Father's photo of daughter in shopping centre sparks security dispute

Cupcake sparks airport terror threat

Fighting Crime at a Supermarket in Hawaii

To help you submit to the brave new world in which we live, Independent Traveler has published an Airport Security Q&A at their site.

I didn’t really expect her to touch my vagina through my pants

by Dick Mac

At the beginning of this century I was travelling a lot. More than I ever dreamed I would travel. My passport filled up with visas, my frequent flyer account swelled with more and more points, and I got to know some of the trans-Atlantic flight attendants on the airline I used.

Travelling was wonderful. I learned the joys of business class and first class and upper class, the use of airport clubhouses and lounges. I owned a watch with two faces: one for Eastern Time and one for Greenwich Time. I began to suffer the amusing delusions of frequent crossing of time zones and continents; needing upon waking to ask the flight attendant where we were going to land. I learned the ins-and-outs of duty-free shopping and lamented that the manufacturer of my cigarette brand was not a participant in that program.

Life was slightly complicated which was balanced by it being slightly amusing.

And travelling was pretty easy. Most of my flights took place before 9/11, and the flights after 9/11 were booked into first-class; so, I have been spared the indignation that is today's screening process at the airport.

I am continually amazed at two dynamics:

(1) that the Transportation Safety Authority really thinks that grandma's knitting needles and a cooler of mother's milk are the dangers we must be protected from and cannot hire staff able to sensibly discern danger from safety; and

(2) that passengers and visitors to airports seem to think that anybody cares about their inconvenience while going through absurdly ineffective and intrusive security checks.

Yes, I agree that the security checks have become ridiculous and I believe they are totally ineffective; but, I would never say anything about it in the airport and certainly not while in line to be manhandled and humiliated. If I want to travel by air, I have to be willing to pretend these security checks are not demeaning, and be silent and complaint when my moment arrives.

It seems, however, that this failed system of airport "security" has become even more intrusive over the past few years. There are machines that can see beneath our clothes, and there has been an increase in closed-door searches of people who are randomly selected or meet some random criteria. These searches require a person to leave the line, enter a room where the door is closed and be subjected to the whims of the "security" person who can touch their body and force them to strip.

Pat-downs, the process by which a "security" person feels your body through your clothes to determine if you have anything hidden underneath, have also become more aggressive.

It's gotten to the point where people are now complaining to the authorities about the screening process.

"I didn't really expect her to touch my vagina through my pants," said Kaya McLaren, an elementary schoolteacher from Cle Elum, Wash., who was patted down at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last Saturday because the body scanner detected a tissue and a hair band in her pocket.
Pat-Downs at Airports Prompt Complaints

What we forget as Americans is that over the past thirty years we have redefined freedom as the freedom to make money and retain it without paying taxes. Actual freedom, personal freedom, is continually sacrificed to save commerce.